Lovin Child to the leg of his
bunk for safety's sake, he went out and cut down four young oaks behind
the cabin, lopped off the branches and brought them in for chair legs.
He emptied a dynamite box of odds and ends, scrubbed it out and left it
to dry while he mounted the four legs, with braces of the green oak and
a skeleton frame on top. Then he knocked one end out of the box, padded
the edges of the box with burlap, and set Lovin Child in his new high
chair.

He was tempted to call Cash's attention to his handiwork, but Cash was
too sick to be disturbed, even if the atmosphere between them had been
clear enough for easy converse. So he stifled the impulse and addressed
himself to Lovin Child, which did just as well.

Things went better after that. Bud could tie the baby in the chair, give
him a tin cup and a spoon and a bacon rind, and go out to the woodpile
feeling reasonably certain that the house would not be set afire during
his absence. He could cook a meal in peace, without fear of stepping on
the baby. And Cash could lie as close as he liked to the edge of the bed
without running the risk of having his eyes jabbed with Lovin Child's
finger, or something slapped unexpectedly in his face.

He needed protection from slight discomforts while he lay there eaten
with fever, hovering so close to pneumonia that Bud believed he really
had it and watched over him nights as well as daytimes. The care he
gave Cash was not, perhaps, such as the medical profession would have
endorsed, but it was faithful and it made for comfort and so aided
Nature more than it hindered.

Fair weather came, and days of melting snow. But they served only to
increase Bud's activities at the woodpile and in hunting small game
close by, while Lovin Child took his nap and Cash was drowsing.
Sometimes he would bundle the baby in an extra sweater and take him
outside and let him wallow in the snow while Bud cut wood and piled it
on the sheltered side of the cabin wall, a reserve supply to draw on in
an emergency.

It may have been the wet snow--more likely it was the cabin air filled
with germs of cold. Whatever it was, Lovin Child caught cold and coughed
croupy all one night, and fretted and would not sleep. Bud anointed him
as he had anointed Cash, and rocked him in front of the fire, and met
the morning hollow-eyed and haggard. A great fear tore at his heart.
Cash read it in his eyes, in the tones of his voice when he crooned
soothing frag